Abstract

This dissertation looks at the Ceramic period archaeology of a region referred to as the Maritime Peninsula which encompasses northern and eastern Maine, the Canadian Maritime Provinces of New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Prince Edward Island, and the regions of Bas-Saint-Laurent and Gaspésie in Quebec. Specifically, I focus on the interior or non-coastal portions of Maine, Quebec, and New Brunswick that form the upper St. John River Valley drainage. Background data on climate, flora, fauna, geology, ethnohistory, ethnography, cultural ecology, and history of archaeological research are presented, and are used to introduce the concept of the interior of the Maritime Peninsula as an archaeological cultural geographic area.

Lithic raw material source areas known to have been used prehistorically are an important part of the archaeological record of the interior region. This dissertation describes the archaeology, geology, petrography, chemistry, and lithic production of three primary quarry source areas—Munsungun, Maine, Témiscouata, Quebec, and Tobique, New Brunswick—as well as several other source areas in the larger Maritime Peninsula region. Data characterizing these lithic sources are used to create a system for classifying archaeological samples as to source area with predictable accuracy depending on methods employed and raw material. Archaeometric methods employed include thin section petrography, neutron activation analysis, and x-ray fluorescence.

Information on the exploitation of these different raw materials and the distribution of these materials across the region is used to analyze the movement of people and materials across the landscape and to explore questions of prehistoric cultural geography. Archaeological distributions are compared with models of socio-political organization and exchange. Expectations regarding the use of raw materials based on cost benefit studies are tested. Temporal control is poor for most sites, but some trends over time can be identified and related processual issues are addressed. The Maritime Peninsula, and in particular the interior region, provides useful empirical data for the study of the organization of stone tool technology among hunter-gatherer groups and for the further development of the culture history of the Northeast.